1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to data processing. More particularly, the invention relates to providing entitlement services data.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is well known to couple a plurality of computer systems into a network of computer systems. In this way, the collective resources available within the network may be shared amongst users, thus allowing each connected user to enjoy resources which would not be economically feasible to provide to each user individually. With the growth of the Internet, sharing of computer resources has been brought to a much wider audience. The Internet has become a cultural medium in today's society for both information and entertainment. For many companies, one or more Internet sites are an integral part of their business; these sites are frequently mentioned in the companies' television, radio and print advertising.
Despite their usefulness, wide area networks such as the Internet present integration problems for many enterprises. Such problems arise, for example, with corporations providing entitlement services to customers. In general, entitlement services include maintenance agreements, service agreements and the like. Such agreements may attach to any of a variety of products offered by the corporation, including hardware and software. In an effort to make this information available to customers corporations typically provide Web based access to entitlement services databases. However, in today's large distributed corporate environment, the entitlement services data as well as the applications providing access thereto tend to be highly diversified. This diversification arises because the business rules underlying the entitlement services vary according to product and geography. In order to facilitate an expeditious Web based solution for customers, developers focus on a particular entitlement service rather than on a holistic (e.g., global) strategy. As a result, a single customer having made a plurality of purchases in different global regions (e.g., different countries) may be in a position of having to access a multiplicity of web applications in order to access the entitlement services data for each of the products purchased. Even when accessing different entitlement services for the same product (e.g., such as where the customer has entitlement services for a particular type of computer in the United States as well as in the United Kingdom), the user may be required to perform a separate registration step in order to access the entitlement services for each country.
The foregoing problems may be illustrated with reference to the network environment 100 of FIG. 1. In general, the network environment 100 shows a plurality of client computers 1021, 1022 . . . 102N (collectively referred to herein as clients 102) operated by users desiring to access entitlement services databases 114. In a Web-based environment each of the clients 102 execute a browser application 104. During a browser session, a user may ultimately invoke an enterprise application 1101, 1102 . . . 110N (collectively referred to herein as applications 110), such as by clicking on a hyperlink. Each application 110 is configured to access a limited number of the entitlement databases 114 via an adapter 1121, 1122 . . . 112N (collectively referred to herein as adapters 112).
Accordingly, no common entitlement system exists. Instead, a plurality of applications 110 were (and continue to be) independently developed to support different products and hence, different entitlement services. Each of the applications 110 define their own entitlement interfaces and provide no connectivity (e.g., data sharing) between one another. The lack of connectivity between applications results in each application having to separately access the entitlement databases 114 for a given customer during a given browser session. In addition, each application is configured to access its own limited number of entitlement databases, resulting in duplication of efforts and resources. Such an environment provides an undesirable interface for customers and substantially complicates development.
Further, it is often desirable for an enterprise to extend complementary services to its customers. However, where the entitlement services data is distributed over a plurality of databases, no feasible solution for extending such complementary services exists. This is because each application is configured to access only selected databases containing information specific to the services supported by the accessing application. As a result, any given application has no knowledge about entitlement services data contained in another databases serviced by other applications.
Therefore, there is a need for a method and a system for overcoming the problems associated with existing entitlement services systems.